Red oak is tradionally used for Santa Maria style BBQ, in this area, since it imparts a positive flavor to the tri-tip. I use white oak since the flavor in a wfo is negligable. When it comes down to it, price may be the deciding factor. The white oak here is cheaper since more folks use the red for BBQ.

Red oak is tradionally used for Santa Maria style BBQ, in this area, since it imparts a positive flavor to the tri-tip. I use white oak since the flavor in a wfo is negligable. When it comes down to it, price may be the deciding factor. The white oak here is cheaper since more folks use the red for BBQ.

If you're running your WFO at or near Neapolitan temperatures, the flavor imparted by any type of wood is zero.

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"We make great pizza, with sourdough when we can, commercial yeast when we must, but always great pizza." Craig's Neapolitan Garage

That's a LOT of firewood. Enough to fuel a commercial WFO for a few months at least.

Take it down, split it, cross-stack it off the ground and under cover, and it will last you a really long time. You may want to build a lean-to style woodshed - beats looking at hundreds of feet of tarp in your backyard for years.

Last look at a massive maple about to be taken down on the side of my house. Too dangerous to keep standing. Anyone know how much wood this might produce, and how long it will take to cure?

John

I had a similarly sized silver maple taken down from the side of my house too about 2 years ago. The tree company said it would make at least 5 full cords of wood. I recently had a good sized branch (5 inches cross section) fall from the other maple tree in the backyard. I cut it into firewood pieces and slowly kiln-dried them inside the Andiamo 70. I put them in when the floor was 150F-250F degrees and just left them until the oven cooled down. A couple of days later their moisture content dropped to 14% and was good enough to use for pizza temps.

In my experience, Beech and Maple are nowhere near Oak for length of burn. Beech burns intensely but briefly without leaving much of a coal, Maple is somewhere in the middle, and Oak lasts a long time and crumbles into coal that lasts a long time too.

I use beech to start the fire, then oak splits and whole 6-8" diameter branch pcs to maintain it.

In my experience, Beech and Maple are nowhere near Oak for length of burn. Beech burns intensely but briefly without leaving much of a coal, Maple is somewhere in the middle, and Oak lasts a long time and crumbles into coal that lasts a long time too.

Remember, a BTU is a measure of energy - not power (the rate at which energy is used). A lot of heat for a short amount of time could be the same amount of energy as a smaller amount of heat for a longer amount of time. That being said, some of the numbers on the chart look too low to me.

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"We make great pizza, with sourdough when we can, commercial yeast when we must, but always great pizza." Craig's Neapolitan Garage

In my experience, Beech and Maple are nowhere near Oak for length of burn. Beech burns intensely but briefly without leaving much of a coal, Maple is somewhere in the middle, and Oak lasts a long time and crumbles into coal that lasts a long time too.

I use beech to start the fire, then oak splits and whole 6-8" diameter branch pcs to maintain it.

There are different BTU charts and they will give you different values. If you scroll down the page there is a link that explains how they came up with their numbers. Like I said, I only use these charts as comparisons between wood species. I wouldn't stake my life on the numbers.

There are also other charts that discuss the burning characteristics of different species as well.